


We Need to Talk About What Cersei Said

by catherineflowers



Series: We Need To Talk About ... [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Heavy Angst, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:11:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherineflowers/pseuds/catherineflowers
Summary: Brienne picks up a packet of sugar. Twists it with her fingertips. “I need to talk to you about Cersei.”





	We Need to Talk About What Cersei Said

**Author's Note:**

> Dear everyone,
> 
> I just wanted to warn you that this part of the story is not very nice. There are some extremely dark and disturbing themes and storylines presented here, and I would hate for anyone to be disturbed or distressed by them.
> 
> Please consider this a VERY STRONG WARNING.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Catherine

**1\. Brienne**

It’s a nice day, so after breakfast, they take a walk down to the south gardens of their house. It’s a lovely walled garden, beautifully landscaped, with paths and hedges and a wide duck pond under rustling trees – tranquil and peaceful and beautiful. At last, the snow has started to melt.

Jaime threads his arm through Brienne’s as she pushes Evie in her stroller, leans his head on her shoulder. Evie babbles away excitedly, pointing and laughing at the ducks slipping and swimming on their thawing pond.

The sun has a touch of warmth about it too – Evie has never known this. 

**2\. Jaime**

He undoes the straps on Evie’s stroller, takes her little hand and walks her down to the pond. Together, they throw seed for the ducks, Evie laughing and giggling in delight as the comical birds swarm and jostle with each other for the chance at food.

Her green eyes, her full rosebud mouth. Her golden curls peeking out of her woollen winter bonnet. Jaime hugs her close and kisses her little dimpled cheek that’s kissed by the first of the spring sunshine.

He turns to smile at Brienne, but she’s looking at her phone with a frown on her face. Thumbing it in a jittery hand. In her other hand she holds another cigarette, her fourth this morning.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

She slams her phone back in her pocket. “Work,” she says. “New client – he wants a trial this afternoon.”

“This afternoon? What about Evie’s swimming lesson? The teacher’s coming over at two.”

“I’ll have to do it next week,” she says.

“That’s what you said last week,” he mutters, but she doesn’t seem to hear.

**3\. Brienne**

Evie is napping in her stroller by the time they get back to the house. Jaime lays the seat back, tucks her legs in with her favourite blanket, lays a soft kiss on her forehead. 

Then he’s on Brienne. Pulls her coat off, then her scarf to press kisses to her neck – lips soft, beard rough, a nip of teeth so sharp it makes her gasp. Nap time is sex time.

She pulls his sweater off, hands in the hair on his chest, followed by her mouth. Biting his nipples, inhaling the scent of him. She opens his jeans and pulls his cock out, roughly – too roughly – he winces. 

He drops his jeans and steps out of them, standing two feet from their front door in nothing but his thick woollen socks. Hair falling into his eyes, cock inching its way to a full erection. He grins, one eyebrow raised. Dirty, filthy, lascivious. 

“Come to bed,” he whispers.

She does. 

**4\. Jaime**

She tastes like cigarettes, but she feels like heaven. Silky soft skin over lean hard muscle, sliding all over him, sliding him over the soft white sheets of their bed. His cock throbs, sandwiched between their bellies as they kiss, hard and full and wanting.

Her heart beats hard under her ribs. He squeezes her breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and fingers until it’s a bright hard pink. Her cunt glistens in the sunlight as she opens her legs for his mouth.

The sounds of breath, the brush of skin on skin, the wet sounds of his tongue. The rustle of sheets as she grasps them in both fists, lifts her legs and smothers him between her thighs.

“Oh,” she pants. “Oh Jaime. Yes, yess. Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop. She plants her feet on the bed and pushes her hips up against his mouth. Great gasping shudders as she comes. Comes again.

She collapses, blotchy red and panting hard. He wipes his beard and rolls her over, settling himself on the strong curve of her broad back. Lifts her hips and pushes inside her with a sigh. She groans into her pillow.

He runs his hand down the line of her spine, across her waist as he builds up his rhythm. Her muscles have returned now, hunched and hard beneath her skin where before she was soft maternal curves. Her job has made her fit and strong and big again. 

He grabs her hair and pulls her up to him, kissing her long and hard. Bites her back and sucks her skin where her neck meets her shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. She hisses and protests.

Her hand finds his, threading fingers into fingers. Breathing hard together.

“Are you close?” he whispers. “I’m close.”

She nods, her face pained and intense, her hips slamming back against his with increasing speed. She shoves his hand between her legs, pushing his fingers where she needs them, her hand moving his hand.

She grits her teeth, nostrils flared, and comes with an almighty grunt that is as unfeminine as she is.

It’s the sexiest thing he’s ever heard. He comes so hard he thinks he’s going to black out. Collapses on top of her in a sweaty, moaning heap. Seeing stars.

**5\. Brienne**

She dozes on the pillow and he runs his lips over her neck. Still lying on her back, softening inside her, wet and warm and sticky and sexy. She feels good, her thighs still trembling in the aftermath.

“Have you given it any more thought?” he whispers. She cracks open her eyes to see him looking down at her through his hair, hopeful and expectant. His hand slides underneath them to cup her lower belly. 

“I think it’s too soon,” she says.

He pulls away, leaning across the bed to grab some tissues. He passes some to her – she rolls over to hold them between her legs. He’s still looking at her, that same expression on his face. He’s not going to let it go.

“Evie’s eighteen months old,” he pushes. 

“She’s still a baby.”

“No she’s not. And you could add at least another nine months, even if you fell pregnant straight away. I know you had a tough time, but you’re recovered aren’t you? You certainly seem to have got your body back, thanks to your job.”

“Well, that’s another thing. I’d have to stop work – I’m just getting my client list together, it’s just starting to make money …”

“We don’t need money.”

“I like my job.”

“We said we were going to have two. We said close together so they could be close.”

“We said that a long time ago.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d changed your mind.”

She says nothing. Watches the slow drip of the melting snow on the balcony outside their bedroom.

“I’m not pressuring you,” he says softly. “You don’t have to make a decision now if you’re not ready. Think about it some more.”

She buries her face in the pillow. She really, really doesn’t need to think about it any more. They have had variants of this conversation regularly for months, and Brienne has already told him numerous times. She doesn’t want to have another baby. Not now, not ever. She loves Evie with all her heart, but she has no desire for another child at all. 

Jaime, however, does not know when to give up.

“I need to get dressed. I’m meeting that new client in an hour.”

He sighs and takes the tissues from her hand.

**6\. Jaime**

He watches from the bedroom window as she gets into her truck. Watches as she drives down the long driveway, all the way down to the gates. Watches as they open for her, just enough to let her truck out, and then watches as she drives off down the hill.

Her truck is visible for eight minutes on the road beyond, winding down the narrow track towards the main road. He watches until she’s just a distant dot. He watches until he can’t see her any more.

**7\. Brienne**

There’s no new client.

Brienne winds the window down and lights a cigarette as she drives away from the house. Turns the radio up and puts her foot down.

She feels guilty about lying to Jaime, about missing yet another of Evie’s activities, but she needs this. She needs to do this right now.

She gets onto the kingsroad, joining the queue of traffic trying to enter the city through the Gods Gate. It’s always busy here no matter the time of day or night – too many ancient walls and monuments they can’t knock down because history.

Closer to the city, the traffic slows to a crawl and Brienne finishes her cigarette while she creeps along. The snow has been cleared from the sidewalks and verges now, and it hasn’t snowed in a week. She’s starting to hope that this might actually be the beginning of spring.

The air is still icy though, and colder still in the shadow of the ancient gates. She pitches her cigarette butt and closes the truck’s window.

Once she’s into the city itself the road widens again and things speed up. She takes the ringroad up to Rhaenys’ Hill and heads into the Dragonpit parking lot. Parks the truck right at the back, somewhere inconspicuous, just in case. Being with Jaime has taught her to be paranoid.

She puts her coat on, wraps a scarf around the stinging hickey on her neck. It’s very sore, bright red, very noticeable. She looks like a teenager coming back from a secret date – branded, outted. She wonders if that was Jaime’s idea. She wonders if he knows.

She slips into the coffee shop. Scans the room – he isn’t there yet. Queues for the counter, hands shaking on her wallet. Then she feels a tug on the back of her coat.

“Brienne?”

She turns around. He’s there.

He gives an awkward smile, his eyes going right to the top of her head. “Well, if this doesn’t look like the most ill-conceived blind date ever.”

She has to smile. He’s no taller than her belly – they make an odd couple indeed.

“Can I buy my goodsister a coffee?” Tyrion asks. 

**8\. Jaime**

Jaime does the laundry. 

Evie helps him, rolling around in the piles of clean washing, upsetting them and spilling them all over the floor as soon as he’s folded them. He laughs and tickles her, chases her all over the house.

After he’s done with the laundry, he cleans the kitchen, unstacking the dishwasher while singing nursery rhymes, bleaching and mopping the floor, scrubbing the stove. It’s a big kitchen, a big house. They could do with a cleaner, he supposes, but cleaners are too cheap, too easy to come by. Cersei could quite easily buy them off and then nothing would be safe.

He strips the sheets off the bed while Evie has a snack downstairs. The sheets are stained and smell intensely of sex, intensely of Brienne. It makes him miss her, it makes him slightly hard.

He wonders where she is, who the new client is. He warned her, warned her strongly when she started up – Brienne’s personal trainer business is potentially dangerous. Advertising for clients, promoting herself, putting up posters and flyers and advertising online is a really bad idea. Too easy for Cersei or Robert to see her, too easy for them to send someone in as a client, find a way to hurt them both. 

Brienne promises she vets everyone very carefully before she takes them on, but this is Cersei. New clients make him nervous. The whole business makes him nervous. 

Evie’s swimming teacher comes and goes. Half an hour in the pool together, Evie splashing and kicking and laughing. Jaime hugs her close and tight. He’ll keep her safe, He will. Always, always safe.

**9\. Brienne**

They take a booth at the back of the shop, smiling politely, stirring their coffee for a long time. Not sure how to start.

“I heard you and Jaime got married,” Tyrion says at last, his voice rich and deep for someone so small in stature. “In the Summer Isles?” His eyes are mesmeric – clever like Cersei’s, but kind like Jaime’s. They fix her with a penetrating look, as if he’s sizing her up, trying to get the measure of her.

Brienne nods. “We spent a few months out there, just before winter settled in.”

“Congratulations. I’m pleased my brother is happy. He deserves his chance at …” he pauses a moment, looking down into his cappuccino. “… family.”

“We have a daughter too now,” Brienne blurts. “Evie. She’s eighteen months old.”

“Oh I didn’t know!” Tyrion’s face softens immediately when she mentions Evie. He looks much less like a Lannister. “I understand why Jaime didn’t want to tell me though.”

“Cersei,” Brienne says.

Tyrion purses his lips. “Well, yes … Cersei.”

Brienne picks up a packet of sugar. Twists it with her fingertips. “I need to talk to you about Cersei.”

“I thought you might.”

“I can’t talk to Jaime about it. Well, I could – it’s not that him and Cersei is taboo. He’d tell me everything. But this –“

“I don’t know that I can help you.”

“Maybe not. But I – I can’t live with it any more. I need to tell him and I can’t tell him and it’s eating me up. It’s eating our marriage up.”

Tyrion eyes go wide. He looks a little horrified at the prospect of getting involved in their marriage. “Brienne – it isn’t my place to -“

She holds up her hand and he falls silent. She needs to say it. She’s going to say it. “Just after we got married, we got back to the city – and your father died. Cersei came to our apartment.”

“Oh.”

“Jaime wasn’t there. But she – she came in. She was – “

“Not very nice?”

“No. But – I wasn’t expecting her to be kind.” She uses a hand to gesture at her own appearance. Tyrion tilts his head sympathetically. “She told me something. Something she wanted me to tell Jaime.”

“But you haven’t.”

“I haven’t. I don’t know if I believe her. I mean – I don’t have any evidence either way, but I know that if I did tell Jaime it might change everything. It might fuck with his head, and his …” She stops to take a deep breath. “His head has been fucked with enough.”

“This thing she told you,” Tyrion says gently. “You’re hoping I can tell you if it’s true?”

Brienne nods – there’s a sudden stinging in her throat and eyes.

Tyrion wraps his hands around his coffee cup. Stares into it some more. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” he says softly.

“Why?”

“I’ve had a lot of therapy,” he grins at her. “A lot. For an alcohol problem, a sex addiction - gambling too. I’m okay now. I’ve unpicked it. It wasn’t rocket science to begin with – my family is very, very fucked up.”

Brienne nods. She can’t argue with that.

“My brother and my sister used to fuck each other. All the time. They think it was secret, but it wasn’t a secret. I could hear them – after school, at night, in the mornings. I’d come home from school and find them fucking all the time. It’s funny – they seem to remember so little about it now. Both of them have their own take on it, but it’s absolutely nothing like the reality.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Selective memories I guess. I think they would be surprised to know that I knew. But at the time …” he hisses out a little breath of amusement. “Jaime used to give me sweets when I was little so I’d go away while he finished.”

Brienne closes her eyes. Reaches for her cigarettes.

“They’re eight years older than me, and I don’t remember a time when they weren’t fucking. So when it went to trial … I couldn’t stand in front of a jury, hand on heart, and say that Jaime was innocent. Could I?”

The hairs on Brienne’s neck stand up. “Cersei said Jaime raped her. She said it was abuse …”

“He told you it wasn’t?”

“He told me loved her. He loved her and she sent him to prison. For three years! He went through hell – they raped him, cut his hand off. He’s on the sex offender’s register for life! We have to have monthly visits from a social worker to make sure he’s not a danger to our daughter!”

“Are you sure he’s not?”

“Am I sure he’s not?!”

“He fucked his sister, Brienne. Why would that be different from fucking his daughter?”

Brienne gapes. She can’t breathe. The room spins.

“You haven’t even thought about it, have you? It’s never occurred to you.”

“I know him. I trust him.”

“I’m sure a lot of wives of convicted felons feel the same way. But listen to me, Brienne. My family is fucked up. Jaime is fucked up. I love him, but he fucked me up just as bad as my father and my sister did.”

“Your … your father …”

“That’s what Cersei told you, didn’t she.”

Brienne nods. The taste of vomit in her mouth. She lights a cigarette to make it go away. “She said your father abused her as a child.”

Tyrion looks away. Bites his lips again, hard. But he doesn’t look shocked, or outraged. Just like a man in pain. Eventually, he turns back to her with what she suspects is meant to be a smile. “When I was older, past the sweets-so-I’d-leave age, Jaime and Cersei used to show me. My very own sex-ed lesson, performed by my brother and sister. I remember I was curious, and aroused and … all of those horrible weird conflicted feelings you get when you’re being abused by people you love and trust.”

Tyrion stirs the dregs of his coffee.

“They did it because they thought I needed to learn. Literally. They thought one day my father would enlist me in the family business.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know all the details, because – thank all the Gods – I’m a dwarf and my father was too ashamed of me. But I know father had parties. He was a politician, a very successful one as you know. Politicians need donors, they need connections. And while I don’t think my father abused Cersei himself, I know he wasn’t above using her to further those connections if you see what I mean?”

“He let his friends abuse her?”

Tyrion nods. His jaw is strong, but his eyes are wet. His hands shake on the coffee spoon.

“And Jaime?”

“I think so. I know he had them perform. Together. When they showed me, it was like … a rehearsal.”

“No, Jaime would have told me …”

“I don’t think Jaime remembers. I think that’s what the selective memory is about. Honestly. I think he’s blocked it out – I think all he remembers is that he loved Cersei.”

Brienne lets out a breath so hard it hurts. She wants to cry. She wants to shriek. She wants to slap Tyrion. 

“Gods …” she breathes. “And Cersei?”

“Cersei remembers abuse. Certainly. But I don’t think she knows for sure. She convinced herself it was Jaime, then our father.”

“What do I do with this?” Now the tears do come, and she doesn’t try to hold them back. They course down her face, drip onto the table, into her coffee. Tyrion hands her a napkin. Pats her hand awkwardly. “This – this is worse. How do I go home and see Jaime, how do I not tell him, not talk to him, knowing all this?”

“Maybe he needs to know. I know this sounds like a lot of therapy-speak, but maybe it’s better if he deals with it. Goes through it, gets some closure.”

“I can’t. I can’t. What if it breaks him? What if he remembers it all and he wants to go back to Cersei?”

“She’s gone.”

“What?”

“He couldn’t go back to her, Brienne, didn’t you know? After our father died, Cersei took her money, left Robert, bought herself a private island for her and the children. She’s lived there a long time now. She doesn’t care about Jaime – all she wants is to keep her children safe.”

A private island. Brienne thinks of Jaime, thinks of their house on the hill, with its high walls, its huge gates. Thinks of his fanatical devotion to Evie, of his need to keep her safe and loved and give her the most perfect childhood. It’s just like Cersei. It’s exactly the same.

“We’ve been hiding all this time from her …”

“She’s not your enemy, Brienne. Well, she is. She’d probably still try to have you murdered in your sleep, but … Cersei’s been fucked up. What she did to Jaime was a desperate cry for help.”

Brienne grabs a handful of napkins, dabbing her eyes and immeasurably grateful that she didn’t bother with make-up. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t want this to be painful for you.”

“I think I’ve gone beyond painful,” he reassures her gently. “And I want to help. I do. I love my siblings, for everything they’ve been through. Jaime and Cersei do deserve to be happy.”

“Jaime is,” she sniffs. “Mostly he is. He loves being a dad, and …”

“Seeing you gives me hope,” he smiles. “I always thought he’d find himself a Cersei clone, live under her thumb for the rest of his days, but you … you’re nothing like her. In any way. It gives me hope that deep down, he’s able to move on.”

“Thank you,” she says, meaning it from the bottom of her heart.

“You’re welcome. Now, I have to head off, I have an AA meeting, and I think I need it today more than ever.”

“Yes,” she smiles.

“Don’t lose my number, okay? I’d love to … to meet my niece one day, perhaps? if Jaime doesn’t mind.”

“Of course. I’d like that.”

“Take care of him, Brienne.”

“I will. I’m good at that.”

**10\. Jaime**

It’s bath time. Evie sits chest-deep in bubbles, intent on her game of splashing. 

“Daddy, look!” she babbles. He looks – she splashes his face and laughs uproariously. He pretends to look away and the game begins again. More peals of her beautiful laughter.

He hears the front doors close just as he lifts her out of the bath. He calls down to Brienne. She doesn’t answer. 

He hears her put her keys on the table, hears her kick her boots into the closet. Hears her walking up the stairs. He towels Evie’s hair, rubbing it vigorously to make her giggle and giggle.

“Hey,” he calls out again to Brienne.

She steps into the light spilling out of the bathroom doorway into the hall. 

Jaime gasps. She’s been crying – clearly. Her face is puffy and her eyes are red and swollen. She looks like she’s aged about a decade since she left this morning.

“Gods – are you okay?”

She steps into the bathroom, falls onto her knees beside him and Evie. Takes them both in her arms and crushes them both against her. 

“I love you Jaime,” she whispers, her voice breaking into new tears. “I love you both so much.”

“What happened? Brienne – please, talk to me, are you okay?”

“No,” she says. “But yes. Don’t worry.”

“Brienne, you’re scaring me …”

“I met your brother.”

“My – Tyrion?” he pulls back. “When? Where?”

“In the city.”

“Was Cersei with him? Did you see her? Does she know?” That familiar crushing panic, rising in his chest. Brienne is crying. Crying. Something has been done to her. 

“No – Cersei’s gone. He said she moved away, bought an island years ago and took the – the children. She’s hiding too.”

“Hiding?”

“Tyrion told me, Jaime. He told me about you and Cersei. Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“About you and Cersei … and your father.”

**11\. Brienne**

Jaime’s face goes pale. Then confused. Then dark. “No,” he says. Just no. A word held up like a shield. 

He picks Evie up. Takes her to her bedroom.

Brienne follows. He has Evie on the changing station, drying her. He’s smiling at her, but his eyes are far away. 

“Jaime,” she starts.

“No,” he says again.

“Tyrion thinks you don’t remember. That you’ve blocked it out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And if you wanted to ask something about my family you should have asked me. Not Tyrion.”

“Cersei told me too.”

He jumps back – shoulders hunched, like a terrified cat. “Cersei?”

“She came to see you after your father died. That time you saw her car.”

He doesn’t look surprised, or shocked. He knew, Of course he knew. “Cersei’s a liar. You know that.”

“Tyrion isn’t.”

“He doesn’t know anything. He was young. He was my little brother, I protected him.”

“Protected him from what?”

Jaime blinks. “I mean I – “

“Talk to me, Jaime. If I can ask you anything. If you’ll talk about anything. Tell me.”

“No,” he says. That same voice. Almost flat, like Jaime isn’t there. Brienne realises that “no” is a wall. A wall she’s never come up against before.

“Why did you fuck Cersei?”

“You know why,” he says. Then shakes his head. “There’s no why. It wasn’t something we consciously decided to do, it was … it was …. What did Tyrion say?”

“He told me.”

“Told you what? What does he know about any of it?”

“He said you gave him sweets to make him go away when he was little. And later ….”

“Tyrion wasn’t there.”

“Where was he? You told me you didn’t have a nanny or a housekeeper after your mother died.”

“No, we didn’t. We were always alone.”

“So where was Tyrion?”

Jaime’s brow creases. “He was … young.”

“You don’t remember him being there?”

“It was me … and Cersei …” he says. “Always …” But his voice is distant. Uncertain. 

She puts a hand on his arm, right above his severed hand. He flinches. Looks at her like a hunted man. “Let’s get Evie to sleep,” she whispers. Picks her daughter up and takes her from the room.

**12\. Jaime**

He can’t stop shaking. He feels sick. He feels like his skin is going to crawl off his body. He wants to cling to Brienne and run away from her at the same time. 

Evie is asleep. Tucked up in her little toddler bed with her little night light on to keep her safe. Safe. Safe. The word ticks over in his mind. He doesn’t feel safe.

Not even in this house, not even with the walls and the gates and the CCTV everywhere. He wants to run and run and run.

Brienne watches him pace the kitchen. Her eyes bright and blue with worry.

Tyrion is wrong. He is. He’s lied to Brienne, he doesn’t know a thing. So why does Jaime feel this way?

“Why don’t you tell me about your first time. With Cersei.”

“You don’t want to hear about that.”

“Yes, I do. She told me that she was wearing her girl scout uniform?”

A fresh wave of nausea hits him. The image too – Cersei, blonde and fragrant, her uniform just on the right side of too small. Pressed on top of him, mouth on his and legs around him on his cabin bed.

“That wasn’t our first time,” he tells Brienne. “It was she first time she – she …”

“She made you come.”

“My first time ever. Is that what she told you?”

Brienne nods. 

“That’s disgusting. I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head. “She told me that she already knew how to do it to a man.”

He feels himself breathing harder. Hyperventilating. “No,” comes out of his mouth before he has a chance to think.

“No?” says Brienne.

There’s something, something there, behind the wall, behind the curtain of pain he’s feeling. Cersei on her knees. Naked, yes. But not having sex with him. Begging him. Please, Jaime. Please.

“Oh,” he hears himself say. “Oh Gods!”

It hits him in the chest. A punch, a thrust of feeling. And then he’s falling, the room upending around him, his head lurching painfully, giving up its twisted secrets. 

Then there is Brienne. Her strong arms, knotted thick with muscle, wrapped around him tight. Her face, ugly and beautiful and perfect and repulsive all at once.

“I had to …” he whispers to her. His voice is hoarse and weak. “I had to, I had to help her …”

Then everything goes black.

**13\. Brienne**

He opens his eyes when she puts the wet kitchen towel on his forehead. Snaps them open. They are fevered, crazy. The way they are when he’s woken from a nightmare.

“I had to!” he says again.

“Shhhh …” she caresses his cheek. 

His hand clutches at hers, five talons, desperate. “How could I forget?”

“Tell me,” she whispers, as gently as she can.

“My father …” he breathes. “Sold Cersei. Sold her like a piece of fucking meat. Her maidenhead for a party donation. She was fourteen.”

Brienne gasps. 

“I fucked that up for him,” he tells her, his eyes alight in a sudden blaze of pride. “I took her virginity first.”

He pulls himself up, his legs a little wobbly, but his back straight and strong. 

“She begged me to. I remember that. She couldn’t bear to be fucked by that disgusting old lech. I fucked her first to defy our father. To protect her.”

His hands are fists by his sides, his eyes looking at nothing. Lost in the past.

“My father was furious. Furious. And it didn’t do any damn good anyway. Cersei had to fuck the donor and fake losing her virginity.”

“That’s awful,” Brienne whispers. “Beyond awful.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. “After that, when he had parties …” He swallows hard. “At first he just set up a camera, and they would watch us fuck in one of the bedrooms. Later we had to do it right there in front of them all.”

“How did you do that? How did you cope?”

He shrugs. He looks like a little boy, scared and shamed. “I used to go away inside. It’s like they weren’t there. No one was, just me and Cersei. The only two people in the world.”

“Jaime ….”

“You know the worst part? He made us proud in the end. He made us proud to do it. He told us we were securing our family legacy. That everything was worth it to further the Lannister name.”

“Do you know these people? Do you know who they were? Could you identify them?”

“Some of them I guess.”

“You need to tell someone, Jaime. They could still be doing this shit.”

“Oh they probably are. But they are some of the most powerful people in the country – you think I could touch them? You think I could touch them with any of this? They’d make Cersei and Robert look like amateurs.”

**14\. Jaime**

Jaime can’t sleep. Brienne’s exhausted, flat on her back in their bed, snoring and muttering in her sleep. Jaime paces the landing, a long-cold cup of tea in his hand.

He wants Cersei. Wants her so bad he hurts, head to toe, inside and out, balls to brains. It’s like his soul needs its other half and she’s gone. She’s gone.

He knows it will pass. Loving Cersei was a defence mechanism. An escape. A blackout. These feelings are nothing more than a legacy of the things he has remembered tonight, he knows that now.

In her room, Evie sleeps tight, curled around the teddy bear he got her. Snoring her head off, just like Brienne.

This is love, he thinks as he gazes at her. This is what love feels like. Every part of his soul belongs to Evie.

He picks her up, careful not to wake her. She wriggles in his arms a little, but snuggles close and sleeps against him. She trusts her daddy. Loves him. More than anything.

He takes her downstairs, walking the rooms of the house with her in his arms. Checking the locks, checking the doors and the windows. Checking the security cameras and the alarms. Then he carries her right to the top, up to the glass summer house on the roof.

It’s cold up there right now, but they have sofas and blankets, and he snuggles down with Evie in his arms, his hot breath drifting as steam from his mouth as he looks over the lights of the city below them. Out beyond is the dark shadow of the Blackwater, and the vast peaceful emptiness of the ocean.

Out there somewhere too is Cersei and he hopes she’s finding peace.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge. huge thank you to my awesome friend CaptainTarthister for holding my hand through this, making some brilliant suggestions and giving me a last-minute read-through when I got the collywobbles about whether or not to post it. 
> 
> She is a superstar!
> 
> I hope very much that you enjoyed the story and that you are continuing to enjoy the series. As of writing this, I am considering this to be the penultimate part, but this may change. Thank you to all my readers and commenters and kudosers - the support is very much appreciated.


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